


The Sound of the Earth Turning

by isellys



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Fluff, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 11:36:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4434041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isellys/pseuds/isellys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The children of Shibuya grow up by learning to move forward. All’s well that ends well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of the Earth Turning

_"To err is human; to forgive, divine."  
_ \- Alexander Pope

\--

Rhyme’s belief in the power of naps is steadfast, unchanging even in the face of life _and_ death; she takes one at five in the afternoon every day except for weekends, and everyone knows better than to call her when she’s napping. (Not that she’d snap at them or anything. The call would just go unanswered.) She wakes slowly, rolling over into a pose taught to her by a yoga instructor—the only thing she retained from that yoga class, really—then opening her eyes to the fading light. A lot of her less stressful calls are scheduled for the time right after a nap, when Rhyme feels just a little bit revived. Brought back to new life.

“Hey, Rhyme,” Neku says when he picks up.

“Hi, Neku. Did you get the invite?”

“Yep. Funny thing, actually. I was gonna wait until I met you to ask, but, uh, I guess I’ll go ahead and ask,” Neku says. “ _Why?_ I mean, his stuff is like, trash. Not even like trash. His work is _literally_ trash.”

Rhyme laughs, because she expected Beat to say it sooner, but there it is. They’ve always had something against Minamimoto. Fair enough, beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that—Rhyme will admit Minamimoto is kind of love-it-or-hate-it—but there’s something personal about it. She remembers walking with Beat and seeing a poster near the Spiral, advertising Minamimoto’s first solo show, rather brashly titled SHO. He had stopped right in front of it, eyes wide, jaw working, until finally he managed to articulate, “Son of a _bitch_.”

That was before Rhyme had gotten hold of Sho Minamimoto. Beat, of course, came with her to that first show, sulked all the way through.

She had lunch with Joshua the next day; he told her that there was a staleness in Minamimoto’s work, a rehashing of concepts pioneered and already explored by better artists, but he grudgingly admitted that the mathematics inherent in the sculptures were impressive, albeit a little in-your-face. The general theme of the show was a comparison of Shibuya and natural ecosystems, from what Rhyme caught. Minamimoto’s captions were mostly incomprehensible equations. Joshua had dismissed them as gimmicks. Come to think of it, he seemed to have something against Minamimoto too.

What Joshua didn’t point out was an undeniable connection to Shibuya in Minamimoto’s art. Rhyme can’t quite put a finger on it, but it’s always there: a corrupted, snarling undercurrent that reeks of the town’s darker side; brash flashiness that tries to top itself every time; just enough desire for validation to add a touch of vulnerability. Rhyme sees something honest where Joshua looks for true inventiveness and subtlety.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” she chirps to Neku, summing up all this. Speaking in proverbs is a habit she thinks she’s outgrown. Rhyme indulges this time just to hear Neku’s predictable groan on the other end of the line. “Anyway, I sent invitations to Joshua and Mr. H. Thought you’d like to know.”

Silence. Rhyme hums Ode to Joy under her breath as she gets up and puts on a respectable pair of pants, pressing the phone to her shoulder with the side of her head.

“Hello? Neku, sorry, I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that. It just never came up. It would be weird not to invite Mr. H.”

“Rhyme, it’s _totally_ fine.”

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Neku is kind of weird around Joshua, for some reason. What Rhyme knows from Beat is that Joshua was Neku’s partner after Shiki, and Joshua was Erased in the battle with Sho, that week’s Game Master. There’s something cautious about the way Neku treats him, though, not like he’s afraid to lose Joshua, the same way sometimes he is around Rhyme or Shiki or Beat. While Neku heaps affection on the rest of them, it’s the opposite with Joshua, and it’s not just some different friendship dynamic they have going on—Neku and Beat have the whole ‘bros who like to talk shit to each other’ thing down to a pat—what they have with each other sometimes has an eggshell feel to it, the texture of cracking porcelain, of fractured glass.

It’s been five years since the Game. Shiki forgave Neku for trying to kill her, Neku forgave Beat for trying to kill _him_ , and they all forgave Uzuki and Kariya for actually Erasing Rhyme and trying to Erase all of them. So whatever Joshua did, Rhyme doesn’t really want to know.

“You’re coming, right?”

“You know it. See you there, ok?”

“Okay, Neku,” she says, smiling as she hangs up.

She doesn’t have to ask, really. Neku has unfailingly been to every single event she’s organized, every launching, every get-together, even the university mixers she did when she was an undergrad. So have the others. They trust her, because Rhyme trusts herself.

It’s not the kind of trust she earned easily. There was a time when Rhyme was lost—not in the _oh no, adulthood, what am I going to do_ way of most teenagers, but well and truly lost, stepping on to the edge of a flat world only to cling on to keep from falling into the abyss below and around. Most of her friends had faraway hopes, impossible fantasies they liked to share, but Rhyme did not. She tried to look into her future and found nothing there. Days on end, during holidays, she’d lie on her bed, thinking what was the point of her, really, if there was nothing she wanted, nothing she could reach? She stopped talking to many of her friends; her grades went into freefall.

Of course Beat had noticed. He’d sit by her sometimes and start talking about skateboarding or something or other, just to fill the silence.

“I know what it feels like,” he’d said once. Rhyme never asked him what it was, but she knew they were thinking of the same thing.

Sometimes it had been everything, to know that he loved her enough to still stand by her even though she was pointless. When Beat introduced her to Joshua, Rhyme hadn’t thought much of it, but he’d made an effort to be her friend, talking to her, indulging her when she went through phases (oh God, the gardening phase, _shame_ ), and eventually Rhyme saw a beacon over the horizon. The world was flat and the abyss was wide, but the void was not insurmountable.

While her friends in high school were fussing over college applications and running around like headless chickens as they tried to figure out what to do with their lives, Rhyme had seen Beat lay down the table and serve their family food and it had clicked in her head like the final piece of a puzzle she hadn’t even realized she’d been solving: if she didn’t have her own, she could always adopt the dreams of others.

\--

Strictly speaking, Joshua didn’t need to eat, the same way he didn’t actually need to breathe or sleep or drink. Sustenance and all the symptoms of living were for those bound to the RG. Joshua washed his hair, bought himself Pepsi, and took frequent naps because walking around as a glowing mass of energy was just tacky. The joy of living was pushing a beat inside his projection and pretending it was a pulse, swallowing rice and calling the instantaneous conversion to energy digestion.

When he first joined the ranks of the Reapers he had mocked Sanae for it; why imitate all of life’s limitations, when death has granted you freedom? And yet years and years later, he yearned for the familiar sensation of remembering to breathe, and not being able to forget that he was doing so. Sanae spent a good month smirking at him about that.

The Angel’s preoccupation with food and drink was never something Joshua looked down on him for, however. Humans wouldn’t have discovered taste if not for the need to eat. A world without its discovery would be a timeline so dull it would just fizzle out, was what Joshua thought.

Living in Shibuya for decades meant he knew where the best places were. Some were as lavish as they were good, with silverware you’d hate to drop and food as fine as the portions were tiny. Some were tucked away neatly in the back streets, underneath the shadow of old apartments and touched only by dim lamplight, audience to little late-night talks, hearers of a million footsteps. Nearly none of these places had the decal that allows Players to eat inside of them. Joshua liked to think of it as extra motivation—the afterlife didn’t have great food, so why wouldn’t you want to leave?

After the three-week Game, he was grateful to gain the ability to slip back into Ukaitei for lunch, instead of relying on the chili dogs that Neku had bought by nines at the hot dog store. Yes, of course they were very useful, and Joshua had to admit he hit a little harder after a round of chili dogs, but now that he could eat food simply for the pleasure of it, he wouldn’t touch another one. For ages, possibly.

It was a Tuesday when Joshua sat down at his favorite gyoza place, the one with a sunken kitchen where you could see the chefs cook the food, smell half-done delicacy and watch masterpieces get made. The evening was nice enough. Here and there, the rustling of leaves, the beating of wings; in front of him the sound of knives hitting the chopping board.

He was about to start eating when he saw Daisukenojo Bito sitting three seats to his left, apparently on his fifth plate of gyoza.

As though lifted by strings held in the palms of the Angels themselves—Joshua didn’t and doesn’t know what made him do it—he got up with his food and settled down next to Beat, who turned and regarded him with cautious curiosity.

“I know the food is fantastic, but that seems to be overdoing it, don’t you think?”

 Beat shrugged.

 “I ain’t full yet,” he said, which Joshua doubted, but the boy was built like a truck and seemed to burn fuel even faster.

 Joshua hmm’ed in reply and started eating. His memory of the taste paled in comparison to the real thing. He thanked Neku silently for putting the gun down; thought of blood as he eats; thought of Neku’s sacrifice, and marvelled at that.

There had been after.

Neku, collapsing; Joshua feeling the warmth of his body and his spilling blood; reaching in, grabbing his Soul and forcing it to stay put before it ascends to the heavens. It had been prickly and unyielding in his hands, pulsing with blue-violet energy, flashes of heat and cold. With Neku’s essence in his hands Joshua had walked over to Shiki and Beat, hands still dark and slick with red when he bent down before each of them. When they both woke up a day later, they must’ve wondered where they had gotten the bloodstains. They’d never suspect Joshua. By the time they were able to pinch themselves, they would’ve already thought him dead.

“You look kinda familiar,” Beat mumbled around a mouthful of gyoza.

“I’m always at Towa Records. If you’ve bought a CD there, you’ve probably seen me testing out the headphones. Kiyoshi,” said Joshua, holding out a hand. “A pleasure.”

 “I’m Beat,” he replied, nodding, taking his hand. It turned out that Beat was the kind of person who shook his acquaintances’ whole body when he shook their hands. “Eat here often?” 

 “Sure. And yourself?”

 “Found out about it a week ago. Been here five times since,” he answered with a thumbs-up.

 “You have commendable taste.”

The minutes after were filled with a sort of companionable silence. Beat bit into his gyoza with a gentleness that seemed uncharacteristic of him, and Joshua started thinking of sharing a meal with Neku, on the stairs of a building, hunched out of the way; Neku’s fingers red with spilled chili, the narrowing of his eyes when Joshua had teased him. Joshua did it all the time with Sanae, sitting in the air-conditioned café, frowning at bouillabaisse.

 It was different, this, the way company that wasn’t Sanae was always different, but also in the feeling of strange peace, the sort of serenity one felt when going on a walk on a nice, cool morning, and strolling side-by-side with a stranger who went at the same pace. Beat was a noisy eater, so Joshua could tell that he finished his own gyoza around the time that Beat did. He considered poking Sanae a little and then buying some new records, when a rather insane thought struck him.

 “You know, if you’re still itching for a good meal, I know a great place in Omotesando Hills.”

 Beat looked at him like he had a screw loose. It was eerily similar to the way Neku used to look at him sometimes. “Dude, you’re kidding. I ain’t got the dough for that. Money don’t grow on grass lawns, and all that.”

 Joshua blinked. “That’s not how the phrase goes.”

 “Yeah? Well, same thing, money don’t grow on something—pretty sure it was something to do with plants. Grass is a plant, yo. It’s biology.”

 Something was very, very wrong when Joshua identified that what he was feeling was amusement, and not annoyance. It would’ve been annoyance a few months ago. When, he asked himself, did you start appreciating stupidity? 

 H’s voice answered: More like, when’d you start liking people again?

 He knew the answer. It unsettled him so much.

 “Would you trust me if I told you I know where the best dessert shop in Shibuya is?”

 “Man, I’m gonna hafta judge that for myself,” Beat said, grinning.

 Later on, they both sat beneath pale pink lights. Beat stopped looking like a boy who wanted to look like a thug and started looking like a kid who didn’t get fed at home. This was not due to size, or weight or anything, because Beat honestly was way above average in those things. It was just that he wolfed down about three sundaes—not just simple cups ice cream and whipped cream, either, but three different parfaits with at least six kinds of cereal, five different fruits, eight kinds of chocolate, and a lot more ice cream than any teenager ought to have in his system—and told Joshua, grinning with cream smeared around his mouth, that he “ _knows_ his stuff, yo.”

\--

The thing about Shiki Misaki’s best friends is that they are complete opposites. Eri is a social butterfly, Neku sometimes misplaces his phone on purpose because he just needs his space; Eri likes vegetables, Neku is practically allergic to greens; Eri is probably the best-dressed woman in Shibuya in her pajamas and Neku is a walking sartorial emergency. Shiki wonders why the police department hasn’t put together a special unit for him yet.

As a friend of Shiki and Eri’s, he really shouldn’t be caught being a fashion embarrassment, so it falls to Shiki to make sure he isn’t. It’s like he’s trying to kill her all over again, except slowly and steadily, with increasingly painful migraines.

It had taken her a whole month to figure out what worked on Neku. He couldn’t pull off casual classy (a white button-down had never looked so ridiculous), or showy glamour (Neku? Glamour? The idea of it nearly gave Eri an aneurysm), or dark, angry and badass (the look on Eri’s face when she realized that for the first time in her life, a black leather motorcycle jacket had failed her made Shiki want to weep).

Neku is too offbeat for all that, but he can work street style looks that Shiki and Eri actually have to think about when putting together: big weird boots and jackets screaming ugly-cool, mismatched items, glitchy logos; composition challenges, balancing textures, managing forms. In a way, it’s good for them. It’s the silver lining to the great stormy cloud that is Neku’s fashion sense.

“Oh, hey, it’s these pants,” Neku comments. It’s this habit he’s picked up from Eri, a roundabout way of bringing up a subject. Shiki doesn’t take the bait, and continues to take apart the closet in search of a shirt from her and Eri’s latest ready-to-wear collection. “I remember when I last wore these.”

Oh, fine.

“Mm-hmm, and when was that?”

“Three years ago, I think.”

She knows it’s a difficult subject, so she gives Neku some more time to think. She finds the shirt and puts it on him, buttoning it on for him—another routine they’ve fallen into that should be weird but isn’t—then sits on the bench, patting the space beside her. Neku sits.

“Okay, let’s talk about it. Are you nervous?”

“You know we haven’t seen each other in like, two months, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s always weird meeting him when I haven’t met him in a long time. It’s like we lose some kind of friendship momentum. I just, I don’t know, sometimes I feel like we buried the hatchet, or whatever, but we never laid it all out on the table. I know you can say, hey, maybe that’s just what works for me, but I do wanna know if Josh really _gets_ what he put me through.”

“Makes sense.” Shiki puts a shoe in next to Neku’s foot. Too chunky. She’d have to dig out something else. “Did you ever try to, I don’t know, talk to him about it? You always act like the two of you dated and then he had sex with your dad or something.”

Neku stares at her. Embarrassed, Shiki ducks her head to go open more shoeboxes.

“Um. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so gross. Eri’s words.”

He buries his head in his hands.

“Neku, you have to work this out if it bothers you. If it didn’t I would tell you to do you, or whatever, but obviously it’s not working out for you guys, so you have to talk. Like you do with me. Do you want a functional friendship or not?”

“Our friendship is perfectly functional!”

“If you say so,” says Shiki. “I’m not taking back Eri’s words, though.”

For a minute Neku looks thoughtful as she laces up a pair of sneakers on his feet. Yes. Thank God for Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas.

“Shiki,” he says hesitantly. “You forgave me after Pinky told me to try to Erase you. How?”

Very carefully, very slowly, Shiki finishes tying his shoes. She pats his feet down on the ground, stares hard at them for a moment. Suddenly she’s hit by a vivid onslaught of memories: the ground falling away beneath her; Neku’s eyes, cold and merciless; blue light; her lungs aflame, close to collapsing; the feeling of her throat crumbling on itself. Looking up, she sees Neku, so different from then, and moves to sit next to him. He looks worried, scared, _guilty_ , and she knows it’s the truth, that he did that to her once, but she can’t stand what it does to him now. She can’t stand it and she moves to sit beside him, turning to smile, pressing their arms together.

“At the time there were more important things to be worried about. And my self-esteem was so low I guess I kind of thought it was my fault? I don’t know. The rest of the Game… you made up for that, and after the Game when I had the time to be actually angry, I just wasn’t anymore. I know you changed, and look, you _still_ feel bad about it.” She pauses to fix the collar of Neku’s shirt. “I just think who we are now beats who we were then.”

Neku smiles back. Every time he does it like that, with so much warmth it’s like he can burn away the Neku of that Game day away a hundred times, Shiki forgives him all over again.

“Yeah, when you put it that way. Thanks, Shiki.”

“Hey. You needed it,” she tells him, pulling him into a hug.

\--

Eating with Beat became a routine. There was something about the pure, uninhibited excitement for food that he exuded that made Joshua swell with something like pride whenever he ordered something for Beat and the other boy’s face just lit up. This was a world where exuberant displays of emotion must be kept under wraps at all cost, where aloofness was the key to gaining interest and respect and it was assumed that being cold means one was more objective or worth taking seriously.

Beat, funnily enough, didn’t seem to care. Joshua was used to people who were completely the opposite of Beat. Neku was always so nonchalantly annoyed and Sanae so nonchalantly pleased that the blatant sincerity of everything Beat did came as something of a shock to Joshua. It was quite refreshing, actually.

Here was Beat, traipsing down an avenue, the streetlights throwing him into sharp, sun-bright focus every time he walked under them. His feet were large and they made loud sounds on the asphalt. When he grinned his eyes were wide, the color of the midday sky, like he could fill the night with day just by looking around.

Then he’d be getting off a subway train, and Joshua did not leave the train because he was only making a round trip; Shibuya was his turf and he didn’t like to leave it for long. From far ahead of the dirty glass Beat would be visible with a nod and a raise of the hand. He’d turn away and walk into the crowd, but did not, like so many other people, disappear into it; Beat, Joshua suspected, was incapable of disappearing into anything. Five minutes later a text from him arrived telling Joshua that they’d be eating at some fusion food joint on Wednesday.

One morning Beat pushed coins into a vending machine like he was about to play a game at the arcade, so quickly they clanged against the slot. His fingers found the numbers on the pad and the movement was less of a series of presses and more of a quick little jig on the metal. When the bottle came down, it did so in hollow clunks, and Beat yanked it out of the window at the bottom, tossed it up and down a few times, before opening it with unnecessary zeal. Then he held the slightly-crushed bottle out to Joshua, who accepted it with a surprised _thank you_. He got to know Beat like this; on the way to a café, walking back from a cozy Italian place, flipping coins in front of the weird jail-themed restaurant. There was no hurry to it.

Raimu Bito was a surprise. It was Beat who told Joshua about her troubles one afternoon, but Joshua, of course, already knew. He thought he wouldn’t meddle; it wasn’t his problem. He had brought her back, and the Angels and Sanae had deemed it adequate. But he dreamed, sometimes, as Composers do, of the different universes, of her bright, bright soul, whole and untarnished, waking up with a terrible taste in his mouth. The Game had carved out a piece of Rhyme’s soul and set it to collapse on itself, but he was the Composer, and he had controlled the Game. Ergo.

When Beat had exams and Rhyme was looking morosely out the window, he’d brought her to Cat Café, reintroducing her to Sanae. She’d said, “Thank you for saving my life,” with such earnestness that even Sanae couldn’t hide his guilt. Rhyme, oblivious, went on sipping her latte. Joshua glanced at her. He had deemed her unnecessary, once, because that was just the way the Game was. What happened to her was a necessary evil. _Joshua_ was a necessary evil. He let his tea go cold.

It wasn’t up to him to fill the void with something new; he helped however he could, subtly, but in ways he knew only he could. Rhyme had sat glumly at the steps of Lapin Angelique, waiting for Joshua to stock up on lace. He had stepped out to see Noise swirling around her, angry, alive with negative energy. Joshua blinked. The Noise disappeared into static amidst a flurry of glowing white feathers. Rhyme seemed to notice him then, looking up to give him a tight smile, eyes bright with blinked-away tears. Smiling back, he moved to sit down next to her.

He made sure, sometimes, that when she and Shibuya fell out of sync, they would be harmonized again; her hobbies came and went, and he and Beat encouraged every single one of them (even photography, which ended with a number of embarrassing Polaroids); the sun rose and set over Shibuya, and Raimu Bito woke and slept, but more importantly, she started to heal.

Months after they first met she’d invited Joshua to dinner at the Bito household. Beat had been behind the counter. His hands moved with practiced ease as he switched between herbs and shifted pans back and forth; there was a rhythm to his movements that matched his Soul. When Joshua took his first bite of the fish, he met Rhyme’s eyes across the table, and she smiled, pointing at the dish. He understood.

Soon after she started organizing dinners for her friends and collected contacts for Beat’s benefit. He watched her lead him to the twin sons of the dean of a famous culinary school, saw them shake hands with Beat in turn.

With Beat taken care of, at least for a while, Rhyme turned her attention to parties. It took him by surprise—there was something too childlike about her for teenage parties, but when they talked about it she seemed to approach them with the same focus and efficiency present in all her projects, without any sort of leftover excitement. Rhyme didn’t even drink.

At first, kept busy by the Reaper’s Game, Joshua hadn’t attended any of them. Then, while he was walking in front of Ramen Don, a poster for one of them flew right into his face. It was a well-designed poster, if a little bold, with an understated _organized by Rhyme &co_ on the lower right corner. Joshua took in the front door charge, venue, and booking policy, feeling faintly impressed, then dragged his eyes up to the headliner.

DJ Ne-ku.

He raised an eyebrow and held the poster up to the sun. The text still didn’t change.

Joshua supposed it could be one of those instances where someone died and their grieving artist friend decided to take their name as some sort of homage or something, but if Neku died he’d know. Or someone was just using the name. It wasn’t like _ne_ and _ku_ were uncommon syllables. They were everywhere! It made sense to bring them together, Joshua thought. It could easily be Da-ma or Ro-ji or even Ka-me. The possibility that it was actually Neku was not overwhelmingly big.

 _Well_ , he thought, glancing up at the sky, idly thinking of the prayers his parents used to make him say, _there’s one way to find out._

\--

Hikarie 8/ isn’t really Sanae’s kind of place; he’s all about art being messy, loud, and anonymous, and though the artspace frequently courts souls like Sanae’s, it just doesn’t go the extra mile, doesn’t cross the line. It is _good_ at what it does, though: small-scale artsy events, meaningful talks, and contemplative spaces. Which is why Sanae is completely baffled about its decision to host a Minamimoto show. It probably has to do with Rhyme; she’s always marketed Minamimoto’s work as gallery material.

Minamimoto’s energy is neurotic, manic, becoming increasingly so as it is confined, and usually as his exhibitions go on his works start radiating a sinister aura, waiting for lightning to bring them to life, and the effect works. There’s a sense of atmosphere in a Minamimoto exhibition. Once a fight broke out at a closing, which had been a nightmare for Rhyme, but Minamimoto had seemed oddly pleased. On the streets, the pieces would just attract Noise. Minamimoto is still Taboo, after all.

The Composer of Shibuya is draped over a sofa, lazily flipping through a book with one hand and holding the invitation to the Minamimoto event on the other. When Sanae comes to sit down he lifts his legs up, letting him sit, only to place them over his lap once Sanae has settled down. Sometimes Sanae feels like he should warn people that ascending to a higher plane of existence basically means you’re going to become a glorified babysitter.

“I’m ready when you are,” Josh says, sitting up. “Are you planning to get drunk or not? I have to adjust my outfit accordingly.”

“Staying sober, J.”

“Many thanks from my shoes and your liver.”

Joshua makes him put away the hip flask when Rhyme approaches them and puts champagne flutes in their hands. Her immaculately structured jacket must be starting some kind of UG trend spike right now. There’s music playing in the background that’s decidedly _not_ Neku, maybe Mina, that friend of Shiki’s, or one of Tenho’s solo tracks; it’s got a beat that’s too regular, synths a little bit too subdued. The décor is spartan enough: an exposed concrete effect Sanae kind of digs. The piece placed at the entrance is a circle of white numbers around a standing humanoid figure made of—you guessed it—trash. Minamimoto’s signature coat is draped around it. The title is ‘Promotion’.

“Well, it’s an accurate representation of the artist, I’ll give it that,” Joshua says. “Hello, Rhyme. It’s always nice to see you.”

“You too, Joshua,” she says. “Hey, Mr. H. I don’t know where Sho is, so I’ll track him down if you want a guided tour from him—“ Joshua and Sanae exchange glances, they’re pro at it, “— _but_ I’m guessing you wanna go exploring on your own. It’s so great to have you here. The others are here too, I bet you’ll run into them if you go in. You want me to call Beat?”

“I think we’ll manage to find him on our own. Thank you, though,” says Joshua, sipping the champagne. He tips the glass slightly towards Rhyme afterwards. “Great choice, by the way.”

“Thanks,” she says, smiling, without the bashfulness so common in most of her peers.  

There’s a whole herd of garbage animals on the other side of the plastic curtains (only mildly disturbing) which start out washed in all the shades of the rainbow and look more and more deranged as time goes on, losing their colors, eventually reducing themselves to dangerous-looking grayscale monsters. The series is called Crossing the Rubicon. Sanae is starting to see the big picture here.

They come across an alcove that Josh just _has_ to duck into—three screens are stuck on the wall showing stills of the Shibuya River, a numbered circle, a half-empty cup of coffee. The screens flicker, and for a second one shows the photograph of pale, tapered fingers with neat fingernails. Sanae would recognize them anywhere. (How did Minamimoto get that photo? He doesn’t really want to know.)

Joshua starts giggling, the little bastard he is.

“Ooh, I like where this is going.”

Gunshot sounds explode from the ceiling. Sanae actually _ducks_ , but Joshua just laughs at him. The screens flicker again, switching between static and words in bolded white font:

_HIM OR ME OR HIM OR ME OR BOTH_

“I think I’ve found my favorite,” Joshua says amidst giggles. He’s almost grinning, looking back and forth between Sanae and the screens with mirth plain in his eyes. Joshua _dissolves_ into a fit of soft laughter—there really isn’t another verb for it. Thank Archangels he considers himself too dignified to do an actual eyebrow waggle.

“You’re a little shit,” Sanae tells him pointedly, taking a swig from his flask.

“Come now, Sanae, Minamimoto just poured his heart out to you in his solo exhibition. The least you can do is appreciate it. Look at it. He’s baring his _soul_. You can almost _taste_ the betrayal, the hurt—“

He stops when he sees the look on Sanae’s face. Joshua’s smirk doesn’t fade, but his expression does soften.

“Looks like someone has to learn to forgive himself,” he murmurs teasingly, which is as much reassurance as Joshua is gonna give. “Gloominess doesn’t suit you; you’ll have lines on your face soon enough if you keep thinking about it that way.”

 Sanae sighs.

“I’m over it, J. It’s just not fun to see something that makes me think about what I did.”

Joshua’s arm brushes against his own, the touch deliberate and kind.

“Can we talk about feelings later? This seems like a conversation that shouldn’t be taking place here. And it will take place, if you want it to,” he says in a voice that could be called gentle coming from anyone else. Then he moves to exit the alcove, changing his tone. “Look, the title is even ‘Talking to Cats’; it’s my birthday, it _has_ to be. H, what was the title of this exhibition again?”

“A Lion’s Tale,” Sanae reads from the invitation, and grimaces.

\--

Beat met him downstairs, wearing a truly ludicrous amount of chains. Joshua could only hope that it was ironic, although knowing Beat the possibility was painfully small.

“Long time no see, man,” Beat exclaimed heartily before pulling Joshua into the half-hug ‘bros’ did that Joshua found so baffling.

Joshua didn’t pay attention to which floor they were on, but as the elevator was slowing to a stop he could hear the music and feel the Music, separate and the same, pulsing with something familiar, defiant, charged. Instinctively, something in Joshua’s Soul reached for what was bonded to him in a Pact. Here that connection was, as strong as ever, capturing Joshua’s energy so easily it was almost like they were still Players. He glanced at Beat, who was grinning and tapping his feet. There was no chance that he consciously knew what it was, but it was impossible not to feel the power; the surge of vitality was so strong that it always bled out to the RG and erupted from the Soul.

The doors slid open and they exited the elevator, going down a hallway which led to them to what must be a living room with all the fragile parts removed, except it was nearly unrecognizable because almost every inch of the place starting from a shallow dip in the floor onwards was filled with people. Up ahead onstage, even under the lights—which were half-blinding—Joshua _knew_ that shade of orange. There was a snap of energy. A tremor shook the smoke that wafted to the ceiling. Neku looked up and straight at them. His eyes were wide, mouth open as if to start to speak. He took his headphones off, jammed a cable into an iPod, jumped off the side of the stage and disappeared into the sea of reaching hands and bobbing heads.

Suddenly he was in front of them, all messy hair and disbelieving, furious eyes, and Joshua only barely registered the tensing up of Neku’s arm as he pulled it back. The punch connected. Light burst; his jaw was hit _hard_ , and the floor rushed up to meet him; vaguely he heard Beat going, “what the _fuck_ , man? Not cool!”

Then Neku was bending down, extending one hand, which Joshua took without thinking. He held the other hand to his throbbing jaw. Neku was grinning like a maniac as he released Joshua’s hand, still staring at Joshua like he couldn’t possibly be there. Out of the corner of his eye Joshua saw Beat getting into a stance, ready to interfere if it came to blows. If Neku hit him again, Joshua would be ready.

Instead, Neku hugged him.

Joshua didn’t return it; the shock pretty much short-circuited his brain, and it only lasted about two seconds anyway.

“You complete asswipe,” Neku shouted over the din after letting go, somehow sounding both furious and thrilled. “Where the hell have you been?”

Joshua imagined he looked completely ridiculous, wide-eyed before the flashing lights. He wasn’t ready to answer that question, not yet, so he shrugged and Neku frowned, crossing his arms. Luckily for him Beat had put one hand on each of their shoulders and turned them around, facing him.

“You guys better explain what that was all about, ‘cause I ain’t getting a single thing right now.”

Joshua glanced at Neku, who glanced right back.

“Maybe not here,” Neku said. “Let’s go outside.”

Scratching his head, Beat went with them, as Joshua kept looking at Neku cautiously, wondering what version of the story he was going to tell Beat, how it would change things. Shame. Joshua quite liked having Beat as a friend.

\--

In his head, Beat sometimes still calls Joshua by the name he first gave, Kiyoshi. When Joshua first told Beat his real name, Beat thought he’d have to deal with a completely different guy, but it turned out that the only things he’d lied to Beat about were his name and how they were connected. Plus the stuff between him and ‘Phones that is actually kind of messed up—Beat’s the only one in their little group who knows the full story. Usually he doesn’t really think about it; as far as Beat is concerned the whole Game is water under the bridge, like Rhyme had said when she’d taught him to meditate. Except when it’s making things kinda awkward.

Shiki and Eri got with Rhyme and started making plans for another show—something about a reunion event, a throwback to the first show Rhyme fixed up for them—so Beat and Neku went around together to actually look at the stuff.

He can’t tell what for, though, since ‘Phones and Beat are only here because they totally love Rhyme, okay? Fuck Pi-Face.

“Beat,” Joshua says when they see him. He’s with H and they’ve got champagne. “Neku, hello to you too. I was wondering when the two of you would show up.”

“Was helpin’ out with the decorations, actually. You could’ve caught me here any time.” Beat shrugs.

“Oh, hey,” Neku half says, half mumbles. He’s staring at Joshua. Beat totally feels the need to say _something_ about it, but he’s not fifteen anymore. It’s not like he’ll ever tell anyone that Joshua and Rhyme had to gang up on him to give him actual lessons on the subject of tact, but he’s not gonna let all that time and effort go to waste.

Mr. H makes an interested noise.

“Hey, Beat, ya mind telling me more about the space? I got the whole city deal. It’s kinda nice to come back to it; last few shows ain’t got the same vibe. What did you guys do with the walls, huh?” he says, gesturing with his glass at the walls around him. Beat almost sighs with relief. This, this is a subject he can get behind.

He turns to face the doorway behind him. “Yeah. So, this? Rhyme was totally goin’ for asphalt, except the budget guys just kinda started cryin’ at her—dude, I’m not kidding, one of them saw her proposal and his eyes went all watery and shit. But we know some kids in theater, yeah, I don’t even _get_ it either—“ Mr. H’s eyes widen at this, and Beat grins, continuing, “—so we went to them and got them to tell us how to do what Rhyme wanted without breakin’ the bank.”

“Really,” Joshua says.

“Really.” Beat nods at the plastic curtains. “Those are from dumpsters, man. Shoulda seen Rhyme dive into heaps of trash for them. It was like she was diggin’ for the Holy Grail.”

He chances a glance at Neku, whose eyebrows are slightly drawn together. His mouth is set in a way Beat recognizes, except he doesn’t know what the look means here. That face means Tin Pin pwnage and Reaper ass-kicking. No Reaper asses to kick here right now, and if Beat has to play Tin Pin right now he’ll… well, he’ll probably enjoy it a lot, but seriously, not the point.

“Look, uh, Beat. You mind giving H the tour? I’m just gonna show Josh the jellyfish mobiles. Remember that Noise? Weird, slippery, no sense of personal space—kind of like you, Josh,” Neku says. Then he smiles, or tries to. He just succeeds in making the face he makes whenever Shiki tries to force-feed him salad.

Beat gives him a raised-eyebrows look with his mouth quirked in what he hopes is a subtle way of saying, _hey, man, you okay?_

Still looking kind of uncomfortable, Neku nods at him quickly. Beat shrugs and looks at Mr. H.

“There’s this one wall we got so right, though, H, you gotta see it—come on, follow me,” he says. He doesn’t miss the way H turns to Joshua quickly first, or the slight tilt of Joshua’s head. They’re just all so good at talking without actually talking now, aren’t they. When Beat walks towards the curtains, H next to him praising the flow of the exhibit, he sees Neku look completely fucking horrified from the corner of his eye.

Whatever, man. Beat’s not the kind of guy who meddles in other people’s interpersonal stuff. ‘Phones will tell him all about it later anyway, Beat’s pretty sure of it. He really hopes they get things sorted between them, though. If things get any weirder he might have to make them fight it out.

\--

With the sort of expertise only a long-time friend of Sanae Hanekoma’s could ever display, Joshua lined up a row of shot glasses, pouring vodka in each one before topping the shots with overproof rum and pulling out a lighter. With one flick all of the shots were on fire. Joshua threw back one after the other with practiced ease, not bothering to blow out the flames. Composer’s twist: making the alcohol evaporate before any of it could enter his mouth; when he grinned at a mesmerized audience his blood alcohol level had increased by about zero. Applause erupted around him. The air reeked of booze; they were breathing it out, sweating it through their pores.

One guy in the back—curly hair, nice jaw—stared at Joshua appreciatively. Joshua looked back at him, slowly, lazily, taking his time with it; collarbones peeked out from under a dark blue shirt, and his lips were pink and swollen enough that Joshua suspected he wasn’t the first person this boy had set his eyes on tonight—

“Cheater,” shouted a voice behind him. Without even thinking about it Joshua muted the surroundings so Neku could hear him loud and clear.

“Don’t cockblock me, dear. Get back to your table and play some more pulse-raising music. I like my hookups energetic and enthusiastic.”

“Taking advantage of drunk teenagers? I mean I’d say that’s low, even for you, but I think that’d be giving you too much credit,” Neku said, not needing to scream now. Fine, then. Marble Jaw wasn’t the only good-looking guest in this party. If he took Neku’s bait Joshua could still find someone to hook up with later, maybe.

He considered Neku’s words. Joshua might _act_ like a total creep, but he took pride in not _really_ being a total creep, so Neku had a fair point.

“Fine, I’ll control myself. Really, though, shouldn’t you be up there? The iPod won’t carry us to sunrise, will it?”

Neku smiled as he poured himself some of the rum Joshua had used earlier, adding a small amount of Coke to it.

“Oh, it will,” he said before gulping down half of his glass. “I have like, a cool down playlist and everything. It’s gonna be light out soon. I bet you can sense it.”

“Mm-hmm,” Joshua answered. Neku took the bottle from him and swigged straight from it, grinned at him; brazen with adrenaline, probably.

“You’re not gonna do anything to me if I get super smashed, right?”

“I doubt that we have enough time for you to get drunk enough. Really, though, your virtue is safe with me. Sanae drilled the safe, sane and consensual talk into me about fifty thousand times.”

Neku snorted. “Bet that wasn’t awkward.”

“One time I was actually in the middle of having sex,” Joshua said with exaggerated absentmindedness. As if on cue, Neku spilled rum all over his (thankfully black) shirt. When Joshua smiled at him, saccharine, Neku just stared.

“I just. I really don’t wanna know. This is the least I have ever wanted to know about anything, ever, and I was the guy Beat called when he lost his virginity.”

 _Speak of the Devil_ was really one of Joshua’s favorite sayings—he loved it when he made other people think or say it, but this time, when Beat chose this exact moment to crash into the space between them, smile blissful and eyes unfocused, Joshua got just why it sets other people on edge. The shot glasses tumbled to the floor and shattered; Joshua and Neku both grabbed Beat before he could shove himself at a floor full of broken glass.

“Shit,” Neku said. Joshua had to concur.

“I think making Rhyme carry him home would make us the worst people in Shibuya,” Joshua grunted.

“So nothing changes for you, basically.”

Joshua smiled at him.

“I set myself up for that one, didn’t I.”

“You really did. Come on, he can’t go home like this. He can crash at mine. I’ll text Rhyme to keep my iPod safe and, uh, I’ll help her tidy up tomorrow morning, probably,” Neku said as he shook himself off his bar stool.

Joshua followed suit, both of them carrying Beat between them towards the elevator, pushing through the crowd. The music was slowing down, beat by beat, and an easy sense of lethargy descended over the dancefloor. Some shred of peace stretched itself across each corner, thin enough to become as light as air.

The doors of the elevator slid open; the floor, predictably enough, was flooded with vomit. With a flick of his hand Joshua made it completely clean. Neku laughed openly, like it was some sort of party trick like the flaming shots before; they shoved Beat between them and lowered him to the floor gently.

It was only when Neku’s finger pushed the button for Ground as well as about five other floors, bending against the panel slowly, did Joshua realize that he might be in an even bigger mess. The next second Neku was leaning on a wall, sniggering quietly to himself. Joshua was completely unprepared for this. He should—he should call Sanae, probably.

“Neku,” he said instead. Neku turned to him, beaming. “Do you think you can help me take Beat to your place? Are you sober enough for that?”

“ _Sure_ I can,” Neku enunciated. Joshua sighed, which only made Neku laugh more. Having the best sense of timing for appearances, cockblocking, Schadenfreude—all of Joshua’s favorite things were being turned on him tonight. Karma, or something; Joshua had never really believed in it, but he knew all about skeptics who startled at strange lights in the night. He texted Rhyme, apologizing and telling her about their situation. They owed her that much. Neku was leaning on a traffic light. Joshua sighed and called a cab.

When it pulled up in front of the lobby, Neku stumbled into the seat, leaning against the car door, giggling out his address to the driver. He rolled down his window and started to point out random things on the road, chortling endlessly; thrice Joshua had to pull him back in to keep him from falling out the cab. Joshua ended up paying the cabbie about twice the actual fare, because Beat drooled all over the back seat and Neku had vomited—out the window, but it was splattered all over the exterior of the car; thank you, Shibuya wind.

A decidedly less giggly Neku led them all up to his family’s apartment. He got the security code wrong four times before Joshua decided to phase them through using Frequency tricks. Behind the sleek black door was a lovely apartment: clean floors, fluffy carpets, state-of-the-art electronics. But there was a definite emptiness to it, a lack of family pictures on the walls or chests, the sparseness of the bookshelves, the empty sink. The large window on the far side was much like the one in Sanae’s apartment. Joshua saw his city blinking owlishly up at the morning from below them, the streets just starting to come to life. The sky was a hazy darkish blue: the color of before-dawn.

Joshua and Neku both hauled Beat onto the large sofa in front of the television. Joshua checked him for signs of alcohol poisoning, then fell ungracefully to the ground, leaning on the sofa. Neku was doing the same a foot away from him.

They looked at each other. Suddenly, Joshua was seized by the strange urge to laugh; he obeyed it, and soon he and Neku were cracking up together, the latter collapsing to the floor, clutching his sides, squashing his cheek against cold marble. Neku kicked against the sofa as he laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

“Oh, God,” Neku wheezed out, rolling over on his back and reaching for the ceiling. “Oh, fucking _hell._ ”

“Time for bed, I think,” Joshua said, getting up and taking Neku’s outstretched hand. Neku let himself be pulled to his feet, although Joshua had to whip out a hand to steady him as he swayed heavily, as though longing for the ground. One arm slung around Joshua’s shoulder, Neku steered them both towards a black door down a narrow hallway. Joshua opened it.

Every inch of the wall that Neku’s bed was pressed up against was covered in Polaroids. There were a few Joshua recognized as Rhyme’s; he saw eight different pictures of Shiki’s eyes; an openmouthed Beat in mid-jump as a bottle of juice splashed its contents on the rest of the group, who looked similarly shocked on their picnic blanket; one of Rhyme filling a Sudoku puzzle, eyebrows drawn in concentration; Beat holding up his very first B+ with a blinding grin; Neku in a dress that had Eri written all over it; a selfie of Neku and Shiki in front of the 104, with the word _throwback_ written underneath it with bright pink ink.

His desk was a mess. Papers were strewn about everywhere. A textbook was open on a cross-section of a leaf. A streak of red—a bandanna that had five Game pins attached: Dragon Couture and Natural Puppy, and (of course) three J of the M pos psychs. The chair was pushed away from the desk, blocking Joshua’s path to the bed, and Joshua had to kick it away from him as he dragged an increasingly sluggish Neku inside. Twice he almost tripped on the shoes Neku left around the floor; one of them was a girl’s sandal, strappy leather and glittery stones. Shiki’s name was scribbled on the sole.

Carefully, Joshua pushed Neku into his bed, removing his shoes and arranging them on the floor. Neku pulled the covers over himself. Then just as Joshua got up, a hand shot out and caught him by the elbow. He froze, looking at Neku, who was squinting at him.

His other hand came up, pointing accusingly at him, or at the ceiling—Neku’s motor control didn’t seem to be so great.

“Hey,” he said. “You gonna disappear again?”

Joshua looked at him. He could erase Neku’s memories of this night; Neku would probably—to quote the hit song—blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol. He might not even remember this bit at all, even without Joshua’s help.

“ _Josh,_ ” Neku whined. Joshua pried Neku’s fingers off his arm, and Neku huffed angrily behind him.

He’d brought the bottle of aspirin because Sanae had made him take it, but since Sanae was an aspirin hoarder Joshua figured neither of them would miss this little bottle. He set it on the table, next to the bandanna. Then, using a pen with a fuzzy pom-pom at the end, Joshua scribbled the number of his orange phone on Neku’s textbook, right on the palisade layer.

“See you around, partner,” he said, looking back, but Neku was already dozing, knocked out cold with his mouth open against his pillow. As he left, Joshua turned out the lights.

\--

With Beat and H beyond the curtains, Joshua looks at him, amusement clear in his eyes. He raises one eyebrow. “Jellyfish mobiles?”

“Look, you gotta see it to believe it.”

“Hmm. I guess that’s the way it is. Lead the way, partner.”

The way Joshua says it, the word feels weighty. Neku wants to turn and start talking, but he refrains. They walk through three rooms, four sets of curtains, making comments about the weird shit on the walls, but Neku’s known Joshua for a little longer, now, and he can pick out the nervousness from between the words. With himself, Neku doesn’t know if it’s the coming conversation or the constant sense of déjà vu that has him on edge. With Joshua, he suspects it’s the former. He’d known all about the Game for ages.

When they reach the room with the jellyfish mobiles hanging from the ceiling, Joshua stops chattering about the Carcin Noise sculptures and turns to Neku, draining his glass of champagne. Huh. At least now Neku can say he’s made the Composer of Shibuya need a drink.

“Well?” Joshua inquires, sounding like he’s asking for Neku’s opinion on the art more than anything else.

Neku stays silent for a moment, thinking through his words. He can’t dance around anything. With him and Joshua, truth has never been a straightforward concept, but this time Neku gets the feeling that he has to make it so. He owes himself that. Staring at the plastic Jelly Swechno above them, Neku takes a deep breath.

“Josh… I don’t really know how to tell you this,” he says. Joshua looks unimpressed. Okay, not a strong start. Neku tries again. “All the things you put me through—and I don’t know if it’s right if I blame you for everything, for like, Rhyme getting Erased, Kitaniji making Shiki my price, watching Sota and Nao Nao die,” Neku says, stops, breathes in deeply, then keeps going, more softly now: “they weren’t little things, Josh. I thought it was my fault you were dead, then it turns out you did it for shits and giggles. You shot me _twice_. I know it was a big wager, and I basically saved Shibuya and grew so much as a person. I know it turned out all right at the end. The philosophical mumbo jumbo, it got old years ago. It’s just… all the good the Game did me and everyone else, it doesn’t change the fact that it really screwed with us, Josh.”

For a moment neither of them says anything. Neku just breathes, curling and uncurling his fists. Here’s the thing about the Game, something none of them want to admit much: there’s something about once having used your Soul as a weapon that makes you so much more inclined to physical violence. There was a time when Neku’s anger was literally a blade of heat and light, and somehow his subconscious won’t forget it. Then Joshua reaches out, like he _knows_ , and places a hand on Neku’s arm. Then he takes it away.

Neku feels quelled. The anger doesn’t recede so much as it seems to round itself into confusion, bitterness, hurt.

“Neku,” Joshua says. “You know, before that Game, I’d forgotten what it felt like to feel guilt. Can you believe it? I’d just been Composer too long, I suppose; the king on top of his hill of diamonds, looking down at the little people below, thinking _ah, how silly they are when they scurry about!_ I think I wouldn’t mind kicking that Joshua in some painful places—“ at this, Neku tells him to get in line, “—but I started coming around when I shot you the second time. You were my first friend in so many years since H, which only occurred to me when I frantically revived you because I honestly, _honestly_ didn’t want you to die.”

“Wow, Josh, congratulations on having actual human feelings.”

“Thank you, dear. As for H—well, when he told me what he’d done,” Joshua pauses, taking a breath that only stutters a little bit, “it finally made sense to me why you reacted the way you did. I never really took betrayal personally, because whenever it came I always considered it a part of the Game. Something inevitable, like with Minamimoto and Konishi. It was… different, with H. That was what I put you through, and it didn’t quite sink to me completely until then.”

“Why didn’t you just talk to me sooner?”

“I just didn’t think meeting up was a good idea,” Joshua says, shrugging.

“So you were scared.”

He smiles at that, with amusement that tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“Yes,” he says.

Neku waits for a bomb to explode. Or for the cameramen to run up from behind the trash animals. He feels so incredibly, totally, insanely _punk’d._

“I’ve learned a thing or two about the value of sincerity from the Bito siblings. You seem to have learned it from Shiki first.”

 “I—yeah.”

Three people pass behind them, and it’s gotta look like they’re just looking at the plastic jellyfish suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room; Joshua moves so that he’s behind it and there’s a bubble of light in front of his face, shifting, like sunshine on near-still water.

“Do you think I’m a better person now?” Joshua asks without looking up.

“I don’t know, murdered anyone lately?”

“I’m serious, Neku.”

Joshua continues to avoid eye contact, like he’s not quite sure he wants Neku to see what his eyes look like for once. He holds his hands out so the light streams through the jellyfish’s cellophane tentacles to make triangles of color on his skin, sweeping over his arms, his wrists. Then he looks up. Neku thinks he might be one of the two people on Earth who’s seen Joshua Kiryu look uncertain.

“I think, yeah. Yeah, you’re a better person now.”

At this Joshua relaxes visibly. He doesn’t quite smile. Neku doesn’t know what it is but there’s something comforting about admitting that the Joshua he was so angry at, had inflicted so much pain on him, was a Joshua of the past; the way the Neku who had tried to push Shiki away and choke the air out of her lungs was a Neku of the past.

It’s not like shedding a skin, because they never really leave him, the sharp shards of memory: Shiki forgiving him within a day; Rhyme falling into the jaws of Noise; Beat turning from him; light enveloping Joshua, burning him away; Joshua in front of him with cruel eyes and a gun in his hand. He feels the images shift around him and beneath his feet. Their edges are dulled so he can lift each one, roll the piece around in his hand, feel its weight. He finds things lighter.

Joshua catches his eye.

“Anything else you’d like to say?”

Neku thinks, moving away from the jellyfish, past three penguins. Joshua follows suit.

“Why’d you make friends with Beat and Rhyme?”

“Oh, that,” Joshua says, as they walk side-by-side to the next room. “I don’t know. I suppose I felt like it. I like being around them. Is that good enough?”

“Makes sense. I’ll go with it.” He turns to face Josh, who is still looking at him with something like hesitance. “You know I trust you, Josh. I don’t think you have a hidden motive for _everything_.”

“I’ve never said anything about how brave you are, but I think I might have to soon,” Joshua muses. Neku doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. Echoes of their footsteps fade.

The room they reach is wide and tall; before them sits a mound of broken acrylic spears, with crystals thrown in, to boot. Light ghosts over the surface of the spears, glinting at the points, shivering around the fragments stuck on the walls. Translucent feathers glimmer with an oily sheen, scattered randomly on the floor and over the spears. Joshua steps ahead into the space beneath the skylight. Neku sees a gossamer outline behind him, an unmistakable phantom of a shape: wings like a dove’s, the outline of feathers shimmering faintly in sunlight. Suddenly the light is cold; Neku can only think of beams of energy, feeling Joshua’s unsettling power in his bones, the moon falling. A cloud must pass over the sun, because the room darkens a little and the illusion fades. Neku and Joshua stand in the middle.

They look at each other, completely baffled. Neku feels a little hysterical, to be completely honest.

“He _wishes_ ,” Neku comments; he makes a _this_ _bitch_ face for Joshua, who actually laughs delightedly, sharply, like he’s been surprised into it.

\--

 


End file.
